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Storyline
Berkeley record store clerk Nick Brady (Jonathan Scarfe) begins to experience strange visions from an entity he calls VALIS that cause him to uproot his family and move to Los Angeles where he becomes a successful music company executive. With the help of best friend, science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick himself (Shea Whigam) and a mysterious woman named Silvia (Alanis Morissette), Nick finds himself drawn into a dangerous political-mystical conspiracy of cosmic proportions. The story is set in an alternate reality America circa 1985 under the authoritarian control of President Fremont, a Nixon-like clone (Scott Wilson). Written by
Radio Free LLC
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Details
Release Date:
25 February 2010 (USA)
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Box Office
Budget:
$3,600,000
(estimated)
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While previous adaptations of the work of the late, great Philip K. Dick have often been enjoyable, none has really taken a great deal from the original source stories beyond the most perfunctory aspects of the plot.
Radio Free Albemuth, while not sticking slavishly to every letter of the original text, is the first adaptation to really capture the spirit and convey the substance of Dick's work. Although this film does not have the high tech sheen of the more celebrated films to be taken from Dick's writing, it is every bit as gripping and exciting as the best of them, but also retains the intelligence, and political thought that previously has tended to go missing in translating Dick from page to screen.
John Alan Simon has written an exemplary screenplay and matched it with strong direction. The acting performances are also fine throughout.
I saw this at the Sci-Fi London film festival and got the distinct impression that I was not alone in my enthusiasm for this movie.